Hey all! Congrats to all who won NaNo this year! It's fantastic- you're all more motivated writers than I think I'll ever be.

If you're interested in continuing to write, I'd like to extend you all an invitation to the brigits_flame writing community. Here's some things you can look forward to in our community:

1. The monthly writing contest: Every month, the community holds a writing competition. Each week, everyone who competes is given a topic. By the end of the week, they're asked to write their best piece of writing on that topic, whether it's fiction, poetry, a memoir, or any other format you'd like. Everyone votes on the best pieces, and the top 50% of the writers go on to week 2. So if 100 people sign up, 50 move on to week 2, 25 move on to week 3, 13 move on to week 4, and only one wins the month. The winner has their name recorded on the profile and on the sidebar of the community.

2. Editing: Whether you're competing or not, if you write an entry, you're able to sign up for editing from our team of volunteer editors. You can specify how tough you'd like your editing to be and whether you want that editing to include grammar and spelling. We're also always happy to have new volunteers for editing- even if you only want to take one edit a week.

3. The Daily Chatter Post: Every day, we have a post that opens the floor for discussion, reflection, or some other topic. Members converse, share, and get to know each other.

4. The monthly mini contest: Every month, one member shares their special talents to host a mini contest. In the past, the winner can has had their writing translated into music, artwork, an acted-out youtube video, and a variety of other things. It's a great time, and a nice opportunity to compete without a monthly commitment.

Along with these things, we always have a bunch of other things going on. The environment is open and supportive, and the members and moderators are active, caring people. We already have a ton of NaNo people there, and the crowd is really something special.

We're taking signups for the December contest until noon today. If you're interested, click on the icon to put your name in! Because of the various holidays, December will be a three-week contest only, so it should fit in with a busy life!

Hope to see you there! ^_^


 

For the past couple of years, I've become more involved with the NaNo forums. It serves mostly as a distraction, but I like to think that my small contributions help others -- they tend to help me in some ways.

So when the site crashes and burns, I get a little bit antsy. I'm trying to assign names to skeleton characters, and figure out some ways my story idea could go. I don't have all of my usual NaNo resources on me because I'm at a friend's place. And there's nobody on-line to talk to.

What are you up to? What are you doing to get ready for November? Have you done your shopping for NaNoWriMo snacks and drinks yet?

Howdy!  Listy here, going for my fifth NaNo and third win this year.  As you can see, I've taken command of our Maine LJ blog, and am giving it a bit of spit and polish!

I'd like to invite all Mainers and friends of Mainers participating in NaNoWriMo this year to join up, share their experiences, and give support to one another.  Anything goes here, I would love to see some excerpts, reviews, reccomendations, and fun stories.  Boast about how much you've written!  Lament about your fear of epic fail!  We want to hear it all!  What else is LJ for?

I'll try to keep this somewhat up to date, but I can't do it alone.  Come and join the fun!

Someone posted this on a forum-- aimed at me when I said something about a novel.:D

Okay, so some of you might be thinking I'm a bit off my rocker if you've seen my word count so far. It's the 4th (I have yet to write anything to add to my wordcount today) and my WC is 19095.

At first I wanted to get a bit ahead so I had some breating room. Then last night I wondered aloud if I could write 50K in a week. Knowing I have to work Monday night (writing my weekly play-by-play and commentary for WWE's RAW) there is no way I could do 50K this week and still makeing it to the nano get together and work.

I know some of you are prolly annoyed with me, but you have to remember I'm disabled and have no life. The biggest thing I have to do is make sure myself and my critters are fed.

So,at this point I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Go for 100K? Sit on my ass for two weeks and not write? (doubt it) Slow down and write at a semi-normal pace? (hope so - don't care to be egged at get togethers). Get to week two and hit 'the wall'? (with my luck, yes)

I don't know what has gotten into me this year, I'm just in the mood to write! NaNovember kicks something over in me that makes me write, but this is a whole new level. I don't know what to say other than please don't filet me, nothing like this has ever happened before and I'm just kind of riding the wave of WC.

Later days,
Ken

Hello *waves* Im Regi... aka ToryWinters on the nano boards. I am really getting excited about Nano starting. Especially, now that I have a "sort of" direction to go in with my story. When I say sort of, I mean I have a character... lol just the one so far... she has no name... no backstory. In fact all I know about her is, she can see all sides of a situation..so she can see the good in anything... but also the bad. I am hoping she will be exasperatating to the characters around her (in a humorous way), as opposed to them responding with "im going to kill you and your little dog too" (WOOT! Does the nano dance... she has a dog!) which would mean, she possibly goes from lighthearted secondary character to mc in a murder story.

She hasnt told me her name yet... or why she is in the story... hopefully she divulges that soon so I can meet the other ppl I will be spending November with. Otherwise I will be the one at the write-ins muttering and sobbing over in the darkest corner... twitching the whole while. Having never been to a write-in though... perhaps there are a few like that ( I hope I am not the only one). LOL

Have any of you started out Nano with as little info? Just one hazy glimpse of a character? Last year I had a good idea what i was writing about... had 3 characters, 1 ghost and a fat cat... and I got about 9000 words in and gave up... (shame on me) I still to this day maintain it was Lainies (MC)fault... she was difficult to work with *whistles innocently*.

Anyways... Just wanted to say hi... and I am glad there is a livejournal community for nano maine. Its the platform i use for journaling... and i check it at least once a day *smiles* I am looking forward to getting to know you all a bit better through out this process.

~Regi/Tory

Hello everyone! I'm Andrea and this is my second year at Nano. Last year I tried to take a sliver of an idea and stretch it out into a novel. I made it to 50k- just barely- but the story went nowhere. This year I am trying to outline my story somewhat, just so I am not totally winging it. It's not going well so far, though.

My biggest roadblock is my inner critic and I am doing my best to shut her up.

I want to write something in the horror/suspense genre; a girl returns to the horrible small town where she grew up and somehow winds up back at the orphanage/group home she spent the first part of her life in. Why she is going home in the first place, I don't know. Why she goes back to the orphanage, I don't know. What happens when she does go back, I don't know. What is the point of this story? I don't know.

Anyways, last year my husband Brian and I made it to two write-ins at Panera, I think. This year I am aiming to be there every Sunday. I dont know if Brian will participate this year, but I hope to get to know you all better this time around.

Hey y'all!

Hope no one was looking at the page or submitting while I was playing with colors and styles. Personally it would have been enough to send me loony, but I'm already close to that edge with nano approaching.

I'm glad I'm finally not alone talking to myself. It was getting rather depressing. Not as depressing as living in the boonies, but close.

I'm so pumped up for nano this year. I'm going to try to beat my first year's number {67,000+} this year. I have not come close to it since then. Usually just getting over the 50K mark is how I end the month. This year I have nothing going on and don't have a house full of people. I don't have my folks divorcing in the middle of the month and the only thing I have to deal with is which cat is in my lap. Every once in a while there's a squabble, but then it quiets down again.

So, hopefully this nano I can start things off with a bang and keep going strong from there. I am soooo ready this year. I have not been this prepared since my first nano {2003}. The stage is set, the outline is {almost completely} drawn and I'm ready to go. All I need to do is clean my desk and stock up on munchies!

Later days!
Ken

PS - I love spell check on this thing. It's fun because it doesn't like anything I have to say!

Hellohello. My name is Bethany, and this year my NaNo forum handle is Bettchan. This will be my second year participating in NaNoWriMo.

Although I'm going to college all the way out in Elmira, New York, I've lived in Maine for five years straight and my family's there, so it's home. Last year I made friends with Ken, Lori, Janelle, and the rest of the Maine NaNo Crew, and they haven't been able to keep me away, since. :P

I won last year's NaNo, at 50,300ish words, I think, but it was really crappy, for a few reasons. First of all, it was a rough draft, and rough drafts are supposed to be crappy (or so people keep telling me). Secondly, I took it too seriously and didn't allow myself to have a whole lot of fun with it. Finally, the biggest problem was that I wasn't writing it for me. I was doing it partially for a grade, and didn't dare write anything too controversial, for my teacher's sake. (He never even read it, which was a bummer.)

This year, I hope to have more fun with my new novel. If only I could get over the fact that I know next to nothing about living in cities and various other details. :P

So what's it about, you might ask? Someone goes to Boston to learn about Bohemian life and meets a couple of hookers (a sister and brother) and their unconventional group of friends. That's all I've got so far. I think that's all you want to know.

My best days of writing, last year, happened at Write-Ins, usually at the Westbrook Panera. This year, I'm trying to get a few college buddies into it. There are some folks in the area, off-campus that are also doing it, and I hope to meet up with them, at some point.

I won't be back in Maine until the Thanksgiving Break, and then I might see if I can stop by and say hello before I head back. Good luck to you all!

Ken isn't alone anymore! We are going to be comming here in droves! LOL

I suppose I should say this is Lori. LOL Isn't my avatar... telling? LOL

*swoops in and saves Ken* Greetings; I'm another Maine NaNoer by the name of Joana. This is my second year doing NaNoWriMo, and I'm proud to say that I finished with a little bit over 50k last year. What I'm not proud to say is I got about as far as re-writing/editing the first chapter of the novel before I abandoned it; it's still collecting dust on my pendrive -_- I promise to be a good girl and get to it.

This year's NaNovel is a sequel to last year's, still centered around the same character. It started out with the idea of centering around a writing contest, and murders of people participating in it. Appropriately, it's called "Write and Die". Judging from my outlining, though, it seems to be taking another direction.

Ah, well. 'Tis the life of a one-month novel.

Joana out.

Well, yet again I'm sitting here talking to myself. But that's okay. Okay, I'm lying, but nothing to be done about it right now.

Nano is a month and 1/2 away and I'm starting to twitch. I have my character (protagonists) pretty much set up. The beginning of their adventure has been kind of plotted. I know how it ends! But I still feel lost.

My first nano I was so over prepared. Even though I found out about nano well into October I'd been sitting on this story for years and not doing anything with it. So I took all my notes, dove in and finished with flying colors. It's still sitting partially finished on my desktop, but I have been working on it in bits and pieces.

Year two I flew by the seat of my pants and wrote a sequel. Characters were all set up so it was just trying to figure out plot as I went. I finished, but did have troubles.

Last year I was handed a FMC and a great plot. I ran with it, spent the time to set up fairly decently and finish very easily.

This year I had a FMC, a MMC a setting and part of a plot. The problem was that I've never been to the event I want to set it at. I didn't make it to the event again this year and was bummed but figured I'd write it anyway. Suddenly it looks as though I'll be going to the event next summer. I decided to wait and do this story for nano '07. I scares me that I'm planning for '07 already, but feel better that I'll have more of a grasp on the setting. Even if I don't make it next summer, I'm going to write it next nano.

So I've decided to write the story of a RPG game I as part of a few years back. The GM has always wanted someone to write some of this in novel form, so I'm writing from the part of the came I played in. He'd been running stories in this genre/storyline/time line for over 20 years, so I have to go with what I know personally.

I will admit to messing with the characters a bit. One of the players won't come in until later as it feels too cliche for him to start at the beginning. If he did it would be 6 people who all end up pairing up, getting married and having babies. It doesn't feel right. So I changed one of the male characters and one of the female characters to make things flow better in novel form.

The problem we've (my boyfriend and I) have been having is trying to remember the order in which we did things in the game and all the adventures we went on. I need to email the GM and ask him some pertinent questions about the founding group and the background behind some of the things. There are some names I've forgotten and I'm sure some important details too. I had a laptop crash in the middle of my second nano and lost everything I had on the computer, including the notes from that game.

Even though it was not the story I was planning on writing this year, I'm really looking forward to it. I loved playing this game more than any other, so reliving it will be a blast.

So, if anyone else is willing to join me here and talk about nano writing in Maine - I'd love to hang out with you and hear what your plans are.

Later days,
Ken

Guess I'm here talking to myself.

I was hoping other Maine nanoers would find this group and join, guess they are all using their own blogs or the blog connected to the NaNo Maine website.

Only 14 days left and I'm starting to tweak out. I'm more prepared than I was last year, but I'm still nervous.

I think I can get 50K out of this story, but I'm not sure. I'm kinda glad I have to write it in novel form as there's no way I could mae the 50K mark if I was writing it as a manuscript. I know I'll have to rework it in Dec. before I hand it to the editor, but it will give me more insight into the flow of the story and how it should be drawn as comic books.

The biggest problem is that the artist wants to start drawing in the beginning of Dec. He doesn't quite understand that there's a lot of work that will need to be done to the story - such as editing. We do already know what the first few drawings will be, so he can work on those I guess, but he thinks it's going to be ready to go as of Dec. 1. He doesn't write and has never done nano, so he doesn't understand what a mess it will be at the end of those 30 days.

Also, he's supposed to be making a few doodles of the MC, her brother, the teddy bear and her roommie so I can make an inspirational collage for nano.

Oh well, guess that's my pre-nano venting for now.

Ken

It seems like only yesterday that the sun was shining bright and it felt like summer would last forever. Now, we only have 22 days left until we are into the yearly nano grind.

I'm Kendra (better known as Ken). This is my third nano (won the last two) and my first year as Municipal Liaison. I'm covering the Portland to Augusta areas.

Now, I'd love to say I've finished my previous two nano-novels, but I haven't. My first one was a young adult supernatural/horror/romance. Vampires, a pookah and a werelion all set at a private high school in Maine (I went to Thornton Academy and always thought it would be a great place to set a horror novel.) My second nano-novel was a sequel to the first. One of the vampires, the pookah, the werelion, and a dhampir.

This year I'm writing a dark Goth (not gothic) supernatural novel that will eventually be edited and drawn into a Graphic Novel. It's a project I'm collaborating on with two other people. I figured the easiest way to get it all done was to do it during nano. Otherwise I'd procrastinate and want to work on my other two novels. Nano will make me focus on that one project. I have most of the characters developed, the chapters mapped out and the visuals planted in my mind. The only thing else I really want to do before nano starts is make a collage so I have something visual to keep me on track. I've been clipping from magazines and will be printing out pics from the web. The artist involved in the project is going to make me a few sketches of the main characters to add to the collage.

Oh, I also need to collect all sorts of nano munchies. Cheap post Halloween candy is always a good treat. Last year a lot of people I knew put on weight during nano, but I lost ten pounds. I'm going to try to keep my weight even this year. I also plan on taking exercise breaks whenever needed. I should also get myself some healthy food to go along with all the junky food, bagels w/ strawberry cream cheese, cherry Kool Aid, coffee, cappuccino and cigarettes.

So, post away. Bitch, complain, lament, cheer, celebrate, procrastinate and most of all encourage each other. And don't forget to go to get togethers and meet everybody who is crazy enough to attempt nano in your area.

Ken